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LEFT TO RIGHT: US president William McKinley is shot in 1901; John F Kennedy in Dallas, moments before his murder in 1963; the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981.

"Violence and American politics have gone hand in hand right from the beginning": a history of political violence

General History

Quiz of the weekWhat did Illinois farmer Joseph Glidden patent in 1867?

Rob Rinder and Rylan Clark in 'Passage to India'

History TV and radio in the UK: what's on our screens this week?

A scene from the Bayeux Tapestry shows a group of men sitting at a high

Why you should avoid hair-pulling, and cannibalism, at royal banquets. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

This print depicts men gathered in a Tudor alehouse, a lively hub of social life where people met to drink, gossip and discuss events. Alehouses were central to everyday life in 16th-century England.

For ordinary Tudors, death lurked around every corner with these surprising ways to die

An illustration shows five women in colourful headscarves sewing a large piece of cloth with soldiers and horses on it

Michael Wood on women's contributions to the Bayeux Tapestry. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

How the Cold War made the modern world. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Alva Vanderbilt: life of the week. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A woman with blonde hair and wearing a navy T shirt stands looking up towards the top left of the image. She has a large white earring and stands in front of some Roman ruins

Alice Roberts: “Christianity didn’t invent itself as an empire from nothing: it adapted existing Roman structures”. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

How women were erased from economic history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Phoenicians: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

In this c.1891 stereoscopic image by Underwood & Underwood, a cowboy in woolly chaps demonstrates lasso techniques beside a covered wagon, as others look on. Scenes like this reflect the working life and performative culture of the late 19th-century American West.

These three unsuspecting inventions won the American Wild West – but did they destroy it too?

An edited image of a man with long curly hair and a lacy ruff. The right hand side of his face is colour inverted so it appears black with a red eye

The sinister secrets of Samuel Pepys. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Katya Adler and Rita Levi-Montalcini

My history heroKatya Adler chooses Rita Levi-Montalcini. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Black women and the fight for human rights. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

This 19th-century illustration, based on ancient Greek vase imagery, depicts two mounted Amazons chasing after two fleeing youths. Scenes like this reflect classical fascination with the myth of warrior women.

Were the Amazons just a “male fantasy”? Here’s the truth behind the ancient world’s warrior women

A painting showing a black beast biting the leg of an orange man dressed in a loincloth

What have the Etruscans ever done for us?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Soviet dissidents who challenged the Kremlin

English author Agatha Christie, pictured at a dinner in 1957. By this time, she was one of the world’s best-selling writers, renowned for her detective fiction featuring characters such as Hercule Poirot.

A real Thursday Murder Club? How a team of crime fiction writers tried to save the genre (and solve crimes)

El Cid: life of the week. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Burying the enemy: commemorating the world wars' fallen foes. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

After Hiroshima: the atomic plague. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Mughal empire: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A montage of images showing a man standing in the ruins of Hiroshima; a man dressed smartly wearing circular glasses; and a Japanese family with two parents sitting down with five children around them

Senkichi Awaya: the lost mayor of Hiroshima. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

an illustration of a pale blue gravestone with several small drawings on it, including a moon, a heart, a ring and some flowers. Around the gravestone there are flowers and it is set against a bright blue background

Why we should be better about talking about death, with Dr Helen Gittos. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Amazons: wonder-women of the ancient world. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

This bas-relief fragment from the Ptolemaic period portrays Cleopatra VII, the last active ruler of ancient Egypt. As both a Greek-speaking monarch and a pharaoh, Cleopatra embodied the cultural fusion of Hellenistic Egypt

General ancient history

On the steps of a sacred temple, Cleopatra's feud with her sister came to a blood-soaked end

An illustration of a king dressed in a green and orange robe. He is wearing a crown and holding a sceptre

King Æthelstan: England's colossus. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Studio portrait of a man dressed as British detective Sherlock Holmes with a plaid cap, a pipe, and a magnifying glass. His silhouette is visible in the background

9 things you might not know about Sherlock Holmes

A black and white photograph shows two men standing with their faces very close together. They both have serious expressions on their faces and are staring down the lens of the camera. Across the bottom are the words KING & CONQUEROR

The wrong moustache in the Battle of Hastings. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.